


Start From Scratch

by series_fan_95



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clint loves his bow, F/M, First Meetings, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:50:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2567162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/series_fan_95/pseuds/series_fan_95
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Natasha joined SHIELD - can be read as an one-shot but I may add some chapters after that one-</p>
            </blockquote>





	Start From Scratch

She was on her own for a year and she did well. No Red Room to control her and she had made a small fortune and quiet a name for herself.    
She could easily defend herself from random guys who came, believing that they could kill the Black Widow. Either they were with the Red Room or the everyday mobsters she was capable of defeating them.  
  She had built safehouses in almost every part of the world. Austria, England, India, South Africa, Brazil, Texas, she had a place.    
More and more people would require her special skills and her money grew as did her reputation.    
There was no place that Natasha hadn’t visited, no client that she had disappointed and no target that she hadn’t defeated.   
  
She was happy, wasn’t she?

Natasha at her 21 had killed, lied and destroyed people’s lives because she was told to. At first she did what the Red Room asked and then what the occasional client required.  
She had escaped her captors but she still lived in captivity. She lived in the prison that others made for her, following the life others had told her.  
She hadn’t made a single friend and no one saw her as a person with feelings and personality.  Just the Black Widow, a rogue assassin for hire.  Her money meant nothing.   
She couldn’t go shopping or spend them in furniture for her houses. It was pointless and boring if you had no one to share the experience with.  She did well on her own.   
She didn’t mind living alone or moving all the time, but there were times that she wished that someone would care for her. 

Three times Natasha tried to end her life and three times she had failed. She was surrounded by darkness and there was no light in her sky.  
This life was a dead end but she couldn’t put an end to it.  She was, after all, the only person who would not harm her.  She decided that she would let someone else do it.   
There were attempts against her almost every day. She was going to let one of them succeed. Despite her decision, she wasn’t going to let just anyone kill her.   
The Black Widow was a legend and legends were not killed easily. The first attempt was pathetic.  The guy (he couldn’t be more than twenty five) tried to kill her in her sleep.   
Not only was he a coward but he also knew nothing about her. She was an extremely light sleeper.  
She gave him a lesson for a next time that wouldn’t come since she broke his spine in three places and then snapped his neck.   
The next time a girl that had escaped from the Red Room was looking for her help. Natasha was smart. The other girl wasn’t.   
She made her within a week and she was found with a bullet between her eyes.  
Two months later she was walking back to her hotel after a successful mission and a man, thrice her size, cornered her in a small alley.   
He had an evil smile and looked like he had come out of a movie. Just like every bad guy in the movies, he was dead within minutes. 

Natasha was disappointed.   
  
There had to be someone worthy to kill her.  After the last attempt against her life, she returned to her hotel and opened the window. Paris was wonderful.   
She wished she had someone to explore it with.  She filled the bathtub with warm water and let the tiredness wash away from her body as she was gazing the night sky from the big window.   
She loved five star hotels.  Suddenly she saw a grapping hook on her window and before she had time to examine it she saw a man coming up, holding a bow.  
A man.   
Who used a grapping hook.  
And had a bow.   
Came to kill her.  
With a BOW!   
Natasha was trained to keep calm and be emotionless in any situation but this made her training run out of the window - the one the man with the bow had come.    
At the thought of this she started laughing uncontrollably.  The man had a puzzled look on his face that made sense to Natasha who hadn’t stopped laughing.  
“I am sorry… I am so sorry” she said between her sobs. She hadn’t laughed like that in a very long time.  “You are here to kill me” she continued “with your bow” that made her laugh even harder “and it’s not polite”.  As she was finally calming down she looked at the man who seemed confused, hurt and a little ashamed to find her in that condition.  
  Natasha had no problem showing her body - it was a nice body after all- but now it was mostly covered and from his angle he wouldn’t be able to see much.   
She thought about her options. She could fight him or she could die with an arrow. That was unusual. She decided to let him kill her.   
Her face turned calm and sweet in seconds. “I promise I won’t resist.”  She said “I would prefer if you shot me in the chest.   
It would be less gruesome and I would make a more beautiful corpse than having an arrow in my head.” The man looked at her disbelieving.   
She was looking at the city and was absolutely calm. There was no fear in her eyes. He approached her and the last thing she remembered was his fist in her face. 

                                                            * * * * * * *

When Natasha woke up, something felt wrong. For one thing she wasn’t dead. That was bad. Then she notices that she was tied. And by tied she meant that she literary couldn’t move a muscle.   
The rope had covered all of her torso and her hands.  The room was a typical, impersonal safehouse.  On the desk that was in front of her there was a familiar bow and quiver.  
So, he wanted to torture and then kill her. _Stupid girl!_ she thought.  Well, he was going to find out that she wasn’t going to tell him anything.

A few minutes later the man walked in and looked at her.   
“Oh! You are awake, good” he said. “I am Clint Barton, of SHIELD. I’m sorry that I hit you earlier but I don’t think you would come with me willingly.”   
Natasha didn’t say a word. She just stared at the space between them.  She knew that he was lying. Many people and organizations had booked her but no one in that way. When she didn’t respond he continued “I was sent to kill you but… my superiors said that we could use your skills and I should bring you in instead” still she didn’t show any signs that she accepted or declined his offer.  She wasn’t sure if she believed him.  She had heard of SHIELD before and they didn’t seem like the kind of people who would be interested in hiring her.  He didn’t like her silence so he took a chair, brought it in front of her and sat, looking at her, trying to study her.  Many had tried, none had succeeded. Clint Barton -if that was his name- wasn’t an exception.  Although he was unsuccessful, she wasn’t.  He was older than her, maybe five or six years, his eyes hide lots of pain if you knew where to look, and even if he didn’t look intelligent academically he shouldn’t be underestimated.  Their staring match lasted more than she initially thought but eventually she was the winner. “So you are not interested. Maybe I should just kill you” he said and reached for his bow and an arrow.  He aimed for the head. She didn’t like it but beggars can’t be choosy.  Their eyes locked, his had questions and hers determination.  He lowered his weapon once again. “You are not afraid?” he asked she didn’t respond. She just kept staring in his eyes.   
  
A plea, a challenge, even she didn’t know at that point.  He put his bow back on the desk.

He sat on the chair once again and put his head in his hands. She didn’t seem to exist to him at this point. He was thinking so hard that she saw a vein at his temple ready to explode.   
“Listen, all I’m saying is that I-… SHIELD can give you a second chance in life.  When I first started I was lost like you.  I didn’t know what I was doing or why.  I have more red in my ledger than I can count.    
But I’m trying to do good. It’s a start. I bet you don’t care to know how I became a SHIELD agent but I’m sure that you’ll find some similarities. I was a hired gun; best sniper in the world.  
I was doing good. I had money and a job.  But there was no point in it.  I did so much harm to the world that it seemed that nothing could change that.    
So, here I am, this one night at a bar, I don’t know where, drunk enough to have the courage to jump from the nearest bridge. A second before I made the step a hand caught me.   
His name is Phil Coulson. My handler.  He offered me a job and gave me the same speech; only better. Promise that you will think of it, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Natasha was left speechless at his words. She was searching for a sign that he was lying but she didn’t find it. This man was either a better liar than her or he was telling the truth.  
She wasn’t sure which one was happening, although both seemed impossible. She was at his mercy; he could have killed her, she had silently asked him to kill her but he didn’t.  
And he didn’t interrogate her either.  A part of her was secretly hoped that this was true, that she was going to have a second chance to this but she was too scared to admit it even to herself. 

Clint came back 20 minutes later and got right into the point.   
  
“Black Widow, will you join SHIELD?” She couldn’t not respond now. She had to say something.   
  
“You are not going to get any information from me” she said mainly because that was the one thing that she was sure about.  
  
“This is not what we want. You will be a good asset, that’s all”  
  
“how can I trust you” it wasn’t a question   
  
“you can’t. You wouldn’t be the best if you did. But ask yourself, why didn’t I kill you, why didn’t I torture you; we are in the middle of nowhere after all, nobody would hear your screams.  
We are just offering you a job.”  
  
“I don’t scream. And I wont tell you anything.”  
  
“is that a yes?” he asked hopefully.  
  
“Where is the job?”  
  
“Well, being a SHIELD agent is a full time job so you will have to find a house somewhere and live. The headquarters are at Washington and there is the Hellicarrier for special missions.   
There are bases almost everywhere but I live in New York and if you’d like you can move there since there is a huge possibility that I will be your S.O. and it would be easier to work together.”  
  
“OK!” she cut him off.   
  
He was talking non stop and that meant that he was either extremely nervous or extremely happy.   
She would bet that it was the second but she had no idea why the fact that she would join SHIELD made him so happy.  
  
“What about money?” At that Clint’s eyes lit up  
  
“oh don’t worry, money’s good!”  
  
So, that was it. The deal was struck.  She would become an agent of SHIELD. The man who was sitting in front of her had saved her life and had offered her a better one.   
After all nothing could be worse than what she already had.   
  
“And one more thing: don’t make fun of my bow EVER AGAIN”

**Author's Note:**

> hey everyone! thanks for reading!  
> i hope you liked it!  
> let me know what you think of it!  
> love you all! :) <3


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